The Corpse Wore Tartan by Kaitlyn Dunnett Page B

other office equipment and supplies, and a small restroom. Rhonda and Sadie were cooling their heels in Joe’s office. Dilys, Liss assumed, was currently being interviewed in the conference room.
    â€œFine heck of a note,” Sadie complained, catching sight of Liss. “Here we had to come all the way back to the hotel in bad weather to work that foolish cocktail party and now they tell us we can’t go home.”
    â€œThe weather’s only going to get worse,” Rhonda predicted. “I’ve got a husband to think about. And two of my boys. I don’t like leaving them on their own.”
    â€œNow, Rhonda,” Liss said in a soothing voice. “You went home and fixed them supper. Surely they can manage without you for a few hours.”
    Rhonda worried the cuff on her long-sleeved white blouse. “I guess. But they won’t like it. They don’t like me working up here at night, either.”
    Liss didn’t know much about the Snipes family, but from the careworn look on Rhonda’s face, she was willing to bet that the menfolk weren’t inclined to help out around the house. Rhonda probably cleaned up after and waited on strangers all day and then went home and did the same thing there for her nearest and dearest.
    Sadie was even more antsy than her friend. She occupied one of the two visitor chairs in front of Joe’s desk, ankles neatly crossed. But one leg kept twitching restlessly and her fingers drummed in an irregular rhythm on the opposite knee.
    â€œHave you two already talked to Officer Willett?” Liss asked.
    â€œI have,” Rhonda said. “But none of us can leave till we’ve all been questioned. We’re carpooling. Well, Dilys and I would have anyway. Dilys rents a room from me.”
    â€œThey’re cousins,” Sadie explained.
    â€œSecond cousins once removed.” Rhonda corrected her.
    â€œI’ve got family at home that needs seeing to, just like Rhonda does,” Sadie added. “I tried to tell Sherri that, but did she listen? I’ve half a mind to give Ida Willett a call and tell her she needs to have a long talk with that girl.”
    Oh, that would go over well, Liss thought. “Why don’t I check on how things are going?” she suggested, and beat a hasty retreat.
    A few quick steps down the narrow hallway brought Liss to the closed door of the conference room. Tentatively, she knocked, then stuck her head inside. When Sherri, who was questioning Dilys Marcotte, didn’t immediately tell her to leave, Liss took that for permission to enter. She slid into one of the chairs set up along the wall and tried not to call attention to herself.
    â€œLet’s go over it one more time,” Sherri said to Dilys.
    â€œWhy?” The older woman’s face wore a sulky expression.
    Dilys was pushing fifty, Liss thought, and had light blond hair with telltale dark roots. She carried enough extra pounds to put a strain on the seams of the black slacks she wore as a uniform.
    â€œBecause sometimes,” Sherri said patiently, “on the third or fourth repetition, the person telling the story remembers a new detail. Now, did you ever go up to the third floor at any time during the day today?”
    â€œI’ve already told you!” Defiance replaced the sullen expression in Dilys’s faded blue eyes. “I was nowhere near that suite, and you can’t prove anything different.”
    â€œYou didn’t go in to dust this morning?”
    â€œI dusted and vacuumed a lot of rooms. That’s my job. But not on the third floor. The third floor is Rhonda’s.”
    â€œWhere were you just before the end of your shift?”
    â€œCleaning the top floor of the center tower. That’s a luxury suite, but nobody’s booked in there tonight, so I left it till last.”
    Reasonable, Liss thought, but hard to verify. And Dilys would have had to pass through the third floor both